1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to interactive entertainment. More particularly, the present invention relates to multi-player interactive entertainment.
2. Background Art
Interactive entertainment such as video games often reward fast reflexes and quick thinking. For example, shooting games reward players that can quickly recognize and accurately aim at targets, racing games reward players that can quickly react to changing course conditions and rival vehicles, and puzzle games reward players that can analyze the situation and plan several steps ahead. Often, video games are rendered more enjoyable by playing them competitively or cooperatively in a multi-player online setting. In this manner, users can enjoy the thrills of competing in ranked matches and the camaraderie of struggling towards a common goal.
Unfortunately, when using a multi-player online setting, the technical problem of network latency must be addressed. High-speed action genres such as shooting, racing, and puzzle games require fast and smooth game responsiveness to user input for an optimal user experience. However, adding online network based multi-player support requires tolerance of some network latency, rendering it impossible to fully synchronize player states without a time delay or “lag.” If synchronization is prioritized, then the time delay may be constrained by the slowest client network connection, causing a potentially large delay between a user input and a game response.
This large time delay is unacceptable for high-speed multi-player action games, which has led to the development of latency compensation and interpolation algorithms to provide better client responsiveness when synchronization data is not yet available. By attempting to estimate or interpolate the changed states of other clients in advance, client systems can immediately respond to user input without waiting for synchronization, thus providing faster game responsiveness. However, this estimation is not always accurate and may lead to distortions in the game.
For example, a client may appear to be winning an online race if interpolation algorithms estimate that rival clients are not yet caught up to the client. However, once the client finally receives the synchronization data from the network server, the reality might be that another rival client already overtook the client and won during the time delay or “lag.” Thus, the sweet victory that seemed to be within the client's grasp appears to be unfairly and arbitrarily denied due to the rival client suddenly winning after the synchronization data is received.
These distortions resulting from latency compensation errors are particularly troublesome for high-speed applications requiring frequent synchronization, such as action games. Users may therefore feel less enjoyment from multi-player online action games due to perceived unfair or arbitrary outcomes resulting from inaccurate latency compensation.
Accordingly, there is a need to overcome the drawbacks and deficiencies in the art by creating a way to integrate high-speed action elements in a multi-player game that can nevertheless mitigate the distorting effects of network latency compensation.